Although it's not perfect, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is still worth the buy.
The first thing you'll notice as you turn on the game for the first time is the absolutely stunning visuals. The DS has serious graphical limitations, but if someone showed me the graphics for this game and asked me what system the game was on, I would say "GameCube." Yeah. For a DS game, they're good. Fortunately, these amazing visuals continue throughout the entire game, and this ambitious title sure shows them off to you.
The best graphics in the entire game though, are in the battles. They are in full 3-D, and the camera pans around the battlefield as your highly detailed character models unleash beautiful flurries of destructive combo attacks against a wide variety of imaginative enemies, ranging anywhere from miniscule squirrels, to massive bosses. Everything performs the way it should, too. After attacking with a standard melee attack, your character will shuffle backwards, as if he/she is totally involved in the battle at hand, never taking his/her eyes off the enemy. The enemies will also behave accordingly, with rodents fidgeting anxiously, and the tough Gob lords twirling their boomerangs in confidence, baddies have real life to them, so battles never seem like you're just fighting different versions of the same thing. Magic is called psynegry, and these various spells are quite a spectacle, even if they are not powerful enough to use on a regular basis near the end of the game. You also have little buddies, called Djinn, to help you out. Every Djinn equipped to a character changes their abilities and stats, so you can experiment to see what makes your characters strongest. This also allows for a higher degree of customization then you will see in other games. Each Djinn also has its own ability, too, and you're encouraged to use them because after a Djinn's ability has been used, it goes into standby mode. Have enough Djinn on standby, and you can summon monsters unlike anything ever seen in entertainment. Summoning will activate an overly dramatic cut scene in which your summon of choice does one thing or another to decimate the enemies on the battlefield. It may fly high into the air, and shoot down a blast of blue energy across your foes, or it may smash through a mountain, sending shockwaves rippling throughout the battlefield. Plus, the summons don't recharge, the Djinn do, and it's crazy fun to spend countless turns getting Djinn on standby, and then unleashing horrific destruction upon your enemies with a combination of 5 or 6 summons in a row. To avoid being tedious, the game allows you to set Djinn on standby before a battle, so you can summon right away, and skip the cut scenes before a summon actually does damage, in case you've seen it too many times already.
Items in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn are varied and cool-looking. Similar to Infinity Blade, items are mastered through excessive use, and it tells you exactly what specials and combos you've unlocked as you pump more experience into your weapon. Weapon combos are visually varied, and all look superb. Other items can revive you, put an opponent to sleep, or simply regain health, and this can be done with anything from a standard herb to a pink love potion to a delicious looking dumpling. Armor and other protective gear has a tendency of sometimes not showing up on your character during fights, and it exists basically only as a stat boost, but this isn't really a problem because the characters look awesome just the way they are.
The environments you walk around in are pretty well detailed, with minimal texture errors and great effects for water, wind, and other environments. The map is wide and open, begging for exploration, but, just like in any RPG, random monster encounters can get annoying. Individual areas can be kind of linear, but extremely varied. One has pieces of ancient statues protruding from waterfalls, while another has you literally walking across clouds. Puzzles in these dungeon-areas are neither frequent nor challenging, but at least they make you think outside of battles. Towns seem very home-y when the y need to be, and royal and grand when they need to be. Locations within towns are RPG standards, with houses, hotels, and simple shops. When talking to people, you may encounter little red words. Tap on these words with your stylus, and they will be added to your encyclopedia, for you to read about at your leisure. You have to be fairly precise, though, because the slightest touch outside of the word will simply move along the character's monologue, and you have to wait for another opportunity to tap it when the word comes up in conversation. Looking in barrels and boxes might give you hidden items, and often you will see a Djinn bouncing on a rooftop or cliff, just out of reach. You often have to think pretty hard to try to get to it and have it join you (after a brief fight).
Controls are pretty basic. You can use the stylus to move your character Phantom Hourglass style, or just use the D-pad, but the controls work either way. The menu system, contrary to Gamespot's beliefs, is actually really good. It uses simple, yet detailed pictures and is really quick. Information is displayed at the bottom of the screen for any item your cursor was on. Because of the easy to decipher pictures, a high degree of speed is available, beating even Final Fantasy in efficiency.
The story is nothing mind blowing, but it's still good. It would definitely help you understand if you've played Golden Sun: The Lost Age, because the game does only a mediocre job of filling you in. This may be purposeful, though, as you collect parts of a storybook throughout your adventure, and, when these storybooks are used consecutively, they tell the story of Lost Age in a charming, Professor Layton-y, style. The story overall is fine, but the method of telling it is absolutely retched. If I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is go back in time and beg Camelot to get some voice actors and GET TO THE POINT!!!!! Cut scenes are told from a single camera angle, which is depressing considering the wide variety of shots in battle, and is told in speech bubble format, making annoying little squeaky sounds as the print appears. This isn't so bad when you're just talking to someone in the game, but cut scenes are so long and monotonous, that I eventually just turn the sound off entirely. Characters also beat around the bush constantly, yelling at each other in pointless arguments, and making jokes that aren't in the least bit funny. Every once in a while, you'll be asked a yes or no question, but you're answer is completely irrelevant. Cut scenes seem to drag on for just plain boring hours until you want to throw your DS on the ground and scream.
The only other major problem is bosses. Even though they are visually stunning and very creative, they don't seem to want to commit to a difficulty. Although none are pushovers, some could be defeated without much challenge, while others will cause you to pull your hair out as your people die one by one. This is especially apparent in the final boss, which is unfairly difficult. It is so difficult, in fact, that, even after you are powerful enough so that the toughest enemies fall at your feet without you breaking a sweat, it will still slaughter you, and I mean badly. A lot of it depends on luck, because bosses don't follow the rules. The thing with turn-based strategy is that it is turn based, which the bosses can't seem to remember. The will constantly attack or heal many times after it was your turn to attack, or sometimes they'll just be good little vicious monsters and let you attack when you're supposed to. The thing is, you just can't tell. Nevertheless, bosses are very well deigned and creative. For example, the Ancient Devil, a small, impish thing, has a fighting style where it summons others to defend instead of doing combat itself (sometimes even summoning your guys to his side), while another resurrects itself even stronger every time you defeat it, and another actually follows you around a portion of its dungeon until the time is right for it to attack.
In a nutshell, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn has problems, but it is still thoroughly enjoyable in most aspects. Basically, it is worth the buy, and has so many good times (and good graphics) that it's worth pushing through the bad.